Lakers’ Jordan Farmar to conduct clinics for Israeli and Palestinian children

By Janis Carr | The Orange County Register • Published July 18, 2008

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Jordan Farmar has been called white. He’s been referred to as black.

He’s read the Bible and explored the Torah, and shared meals with basketball players from around the world.

Yet nothing has touched Farmar culturally more than playing basketball with dozens of Palestinians and Israelis teen-agers, who together discovered a common ground on a basketball court.

Two summers ago, the Lakers guard took part in the fifth annual "Play for Peace" clinic at the Seeds of Peace International Camp in Otisfield, Maine.

The annual camp, the brainchild of player agent Arm Tellem, brings together teens from the Middle East to help them understand the value of cooperation through basketball as enemies became teammates.

Now, Farmar wants to spread that goodwill and peace overseas, to the heart of the animosity - Israel.

Next month the former UCLA star will hold basketball clinics for Israeli and Palestinian children in Israel, to help show kids that peace is possible, even if it’s just a few minutes at a time.

The teens compete in various sports and discuss the shared problems and challenges in their daily lives, lives normally separated by political and cultural differences but with one common denominator - hatred.

"I want to promote the knowledge that just because you have been taught one way or brought up from birth to think that way doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right," Farmar said in a telephone interview.

The program is partnered with the Peres Center for Peace, which is a foundation founded in 1996 by Israeli President Shimon Peres to help motivate the Middle East adversaries to work together to build peace through socio-economic cooperation and development and personal interaction.

Following the clinics, Farmar will travel the region, stopping in Jerusalem and Haifa.

Farmar believes sports has the ability to "transcend conflict," making it a powerful tool that enables children of all backgrounds to find a common ground.

"Bringing these children together while they are young and impressionable and helping them learn how to play and communicate with one another can build bridges of understanding when they are older," he said.